No shortage of excuses in jury selection at NXIVM sex cult leader’s trial

Dozens of would-be jurors in the trial of the NXIVM sex cult leader have been released so far this week after giving a range of excuses for not being qualified to serve.

About half of the roughly 80 panelists who were prescreened this week have been sent packing at Keith Raniere’s trial for imprisonment of victims, sex trafficking, child porn and other crimes in connection to a subversive secret society.

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The trial is expected to last six-weeks in Brooklyn Federal Court, and while many complained they would not be paid by their employers, others claimed they had conflicts that did not always pass muster.

One man, a naturalized citizen, got U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis incensed when he insisted he didn’t want to expose himself to sexually explicit material out of fear that it would shake his Christian convictions.

“I do not want to know about these organizations,” the man said, adding that his “conscience says I don’t want to listen” to the disturbing details that are central to the case.

And earlier in the day, a music licenser carried out a thinly-veiled campaign to get cut.

First, she argued that her employer could not get by without her, and then she insisted she has very strong feelings on abortion. Raniere allegedly forced dozens of enslaved women he had sex with to terminate their pregnancies.